


Escape

by lacygrey



Series: Lacy's Loki ficlets [2]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Asgard, Gen, Imprisonment, Mystery, Thor: The Dark World, Tumblr: imagine-loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 18:04:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15563421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacygrey/pseuds/lacygrey
Summary: Imagine Loki wakes one day in his Asgardian prison cell to find that someone has left the forcefields open...





	Escape

Loki wakes in a strange silence. There’s the usual excess of unnatural light, as always in the prison, but it’s too quiet. What’s different? He doesn’t move, just listens as hard as he can. Then he reaches out with his seidr, not expecting to get any further than walls of the cell.

But…but then he can! The shields are down, they’ve left it unlocked. Wide open. His magic goes straight through. He jumps up and runs over, waving a hand in the space where the forcefield should be. Nothing. And nobody in sight.

Does that mean he can leave? Unless this is some sort of a trick. If so its not a very elegant one.

Perhaps it’s a test. They’re watching to see what he’ll try to pull, see if he will commit a true crime, finally.

Or what if there’s a task out there his skills are needed for, but no one will admit it - no one will come and ask the traitor. They must be desperate, but still desperate to keep up appearances.

They can go hang.

But…He has to do something. It’s too good a chance to miss.

Still he waits. Though it’s difficult and the temptation to go see is steadily mounting. No one comes, not even at the times they usually do, to feed him.

That tells him enough. They are waiting for him to make his move, or else he thinks, for the first time, there might be something wrong.

He sends a clone first, one that actually looks like him, to see for him and be seen, but which cannot feel. Like that he can judge their reactions. He finds no one to give him one. Everywhere the clone goes is deserted. What started as a question is now making him nervous. If this is a trap then it’s elaborate. He wonders who is responsible.

By the next day he’s decided it isn’t a trap or a test and besides, he’s too hungry to wait them out.

When he steps from the cell he sees that all the other cells are empty. This is nothing new for the ones immediately neighbouring his own, they’ve always tried to keep him isolated when they could. But now he sees that it’s the same everywhere. The prison is deserted. The place is without a sound, it feels like somewhere else.

He will need more than his slippers. He conjures his boots, his armour, his knives, they come as though there’s no limit on his magic.

It doesn’t feel like some body’s watching him. They must be very well hidden. Are they waiting to see what he’ll do?

The sound of his own steps echos as he climbs the stairs at the top he thinks he can hear the murmuring of voices outside, but when he emerges it is merely the wind and as far as he can see there are only the bare expanses of Asgard’s terraces and not a soul in sight. The feeling of the sun on his face and the wind in his hair is a revelation and he stands there an uncountable time absorbing the sensations.

The fountains still flow, the gardens are flourishing, as though tended this very morning. He plucks a ripe peach from a tree and enjoys how it tastes to finally eat in daylight.

But where is everyone? He runs to the royal quarters. There are no guards in front of the palace, or within its halls, no one to stop him if he is still considered a criminal, or bow to him if this freedom means he is pardoned.

As he fears, there is no one, and everything is unlocked. He searches from top to bottom. His old rooms are just as he last saw them, and recently cleaned it seems, the floor sparkling and fresh sheets on the bed. Thor’s quarters he finds in their usual disorder and with some evidence of a woman. That mortal perhaps.

He’s not dreaming, it’s too precise, the clarity too searing. They cannot all have disappeared. He starts calling, heedlessly drawing attention to himself. He decides to seek out Heimdall, but finds he cannot ride out to the observatory as not a single horse remains in the stables. Has the whole population sought refuge in the hills? Have they taken the bifrost to another realm? Could Asgard be awaiting an attack? Or, worse, could it already have suffered one - a silent deadly one. There are no sign of fighting or bloodshed and he is glad, he cares for the Asgardians even though they were never his kin. Besides, who else could he call that and who else could they be?

But, as for them, did they finally abandon him or forget him. Or were they attacked so quickly that they could do nothing.

He scours the city for clues, but the doubt is gaining on him. What would Asgard be attacked for, if not to colonise or to pillage? Everything here looks in its place, even all the gold. A doubt tickles his mind and with it a hope. He makes his way to the weapons vault, in the back of his mind the thought that there could be the tesseract and thereby a way out of here. It is empty.

With no horse or strong magic, he finally makes it out the observatory on foot. There’s no Heimdall and no sword, but strangely enough he takes heart in this. That the man, wherever still has the sword.

He goes to the throne room and, because there’s no one there to stop him he sits on the throne. Despite his predicament. He can’t stop grinning looking out on the great hall. He casts an illusion, filling the room with adoring subjects, just because he can. Then, tired from the efforts of the magic he goes to the kitchens where food is stacked in abundance and prepares himself a supper. He takes it back and eats it on the throne in decadence, while he prepares another illusion of a great feast around him, with music and entertainers and the whole populace celebrating, he, Loki, King of Asgard.

It doesn’t solve the enigma. There are no signs of a rushed departure. More than anything he can find no message left for him.

Why leave him behind?

Because he’s unwanted, unloved, unlovable? He tries to shake that idea and resolves to throw a party every night.

…Asgard is yours… his mother had said, but why is she not here? She of all of them.

He sleeps once more in his own bed, does as he pleases and rules his kingdom of one with his magic, conjuring the semblance of company when he feels like it. He gets angry often and takes his revenge through a full redecoration of the palace and environs in his taste, not Odin’s, thinking with relish if they could only see, which they probably can thanks to Heimdall.

If only he could be sure that they made it out. Even if they abandoned him.

It still feels like a betrayal.

Not being able to show his work off angers him. So he knocks everything down, exhausting himself and his magic, then kicks the debris round in frustration.

The next day he builds it again, better.

Surveying his handiwork from the vantage point of the throne of Asgard, he muses. If this isn’t a trap, if it isn’t a test or a way of harnessing his talents for some great and worthy task, then what is this?

Is this madness?


End file.
